I’ve noticed that every time I come back to Canada I find a way to live more and more simply, frugally. Even those little things that I do for myself that I consider luxury (special little treats for myself) are becoming more and more simple. I found a room to rent that had carpet and under-lay to sleep on; which is a step up from a hardwood floor; which is a step up from a concrete floor, which is a step up from an uneven stone floor. My bathwater I noticed today, barely covered my legs, when I could fill the tub three times fuller.

I’ve lessened my possessions by another two boxes. The four boxes I have now seem frivolous to me. All that banking, tax, work, school information; pictures and journals and a couple boxes of mementos. My camping and winter and work gear is all in duffel bags. And of course the bag of stuff I carry with me. None of it means much to me anymore. It came to me somehow and it can go any time. I’ve noticed that when something I thought was really important to me gets lost or stolen or broken, the first thing I discover is that it’s passing doesn’t really affect me.

The more I get rid of stuff, the more I discover that there is always just a little bit more you can get rid of. Some of the stories I tell myself to convince myself to keep something are outrageous. Almost a whole box of stuff is sitting in the hatch of my car because I told myself, “I should keep something from all of this travel, something to say where I’ve been, to give some idea of what I’ve done…”

A direct line from my ego came up am said this to me about a week ago. I only discovered it yesterday. How long this kind of thing has been going on for, I don’t know, but probably forever. I gave away half of this box almost immediately. It’s amazing sometimes how honest the ego can be with us and we simply are not paying attention.

But life is getting simpler all the time… and this makes me happier…

The other aspect of being down to so few things, is that what I do have left is those things I’m tied to the most firmly. My job is a strong attachment… so is this boyscout mentality of always being prepared (camping and winter gear)… work is an attachment I’d like to get rid of, but still it takes up almost 1/3 of my space…. the car, which I now keep because of the excuse that I need some place to store my stuff, and I might need it later. The truth is that I’m only keeping the stuff because, heck, why not, I have a car to store it in. I have a space for it.